Hello everyone and welcome back!
Today is Friday March 26, 2010
My name is Angela Walton-Raji
And this is the African Roots Podcast

You can always reach me at africanrootspodcast@gmail.com

How is everyone today? Well—What a difference an entire year makes! This marks the 52nd consecutive episode of the AfricanRootsPodcast, bringing to an end the 1st full year of weekly podcasts! I look forward to the second year ahead! Thank you for being out there, and for listening.

Well, it’s hard to believe that March is almost over and we are moving into April quickly. Some events coming up in the greater Baltimore Washington area and I am happy to share them with you.

Saturday March 27Enoch Pratt Library, Timothy Pinnick from Chicago, noted genealogist, author and lecturer will be speaking at EnochPratt Library in Baltimore. He will be presenting on Documenting Civil War ancestors. 10:30 am.

The same day at the Northwood Branch of Enoch Pratt library, a Genealogy Expo will be taking place sponsored by the Agnes K. Callum chapter of AAHGS 11:00 – 3:00 The location is Cold Spring and Lochraven Ave.

The Central MD chapter of AAHGS will meet at 1:00 – 3:00 pm at the Owen Brown Community Center, 6800 Cradelrock Way, Columbia MD Reginald Washington of the National Archives will be speaking.

April Events
In April a series of genealogy events will unfold at the National Archives in Washington DC. April 7-15thApril 7 Introduction to Genealogy at 11 am. Archives staff present a lecture on basic genealogical research in Federal records. This lecture occurs the first Wednesday of the month. Room G-24.

April 14th 7pm an opportunity to listen to Megan Smolenyak present. She is chief family historian and spokesperson for Ancestry.com, author of Who Do You Think You Are The companion book.

The 6th Annual Genealogy Fair will take place April 14th and 15th .
Through lectures and exhibits, the two-day program will showcase the diversity of Federal records located at the National Archives as resources for family history research. Speakers and exhibitors will include National Archives staff members, including archivitst and specialists to assist you with brick walls ethnic research, immigrants, and much more. The event is for beginning and advanced level researchers. The fair is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the Genealogy Fair web page periodically for schedule, speaker, and exhibitor updates

Still opportunity to register for Advanced genealogy classes in Columbia MD. This class is offered by professional genealogist and blogger, Robyn Smith. It will be held from April 20-May 25, every Tuesday night from 7-9pm.

For those interested in Oral history projects, I found online this week the African American Oral History Collection from Louisville, Kentucky. This rests on the digital library site of the Univ. of Louisville. These interviews collected in the 1970s cover many aspects of people who were part of the black community at that time. Those persons of influence in business, politics, education, medicine, entertainment and more are included in this collection. Both the transcription and the audio file is included on the site.

Oral history projects such as that found on the Louisville site should inspire many of us to look at our communities and consider the value of capturing the histories of the communities where our ancestors lived. If you have not taken the time to do so, why not make an assessment of the records of the entire community or enumeration district? Sometimes those small settlements have their own unique stories to tell and capturing their histories can lead to more stories about our own families. Were there events such as floods, or hurricanes, or tornadoes that happened? How was your family affected? How did your family respond during the years of the Depression, World War II, or in recent years, the Vietnam War, the years of Jim Crow segregation? How did the community cope with the crises that affected it?

All of these kinds of questions help us to tell the stories of our families, by telling how they adapted to the events of the day. Let’s learn from the Louisville Afr. Am Oral history project and look at our own communities with a new eye. When we see them on the census, look at the occupations of everyone nearby and form some new questions.

Well thanks for listening and thanks for being a part of my audience for this past year!

Next week marks the first podcast in a brand new year! Thank you for sharing this past year with me.

In the meantime, keep doing what you do,
keep researching,
keep documenting, and please,
keep sharing what you find!

Meta

About Me

Author of "Black Indian Genealogy Research", Member of AAHGS -Afro-American Historical & Gennealogical Society, Founding member of AfriGeneas, Faculty for Samford IGHR, and MAAGI -Midwest African American Genealogy Institute, PAAC-Preservation of African American Cemeteries